work in progress pneumatic aeroponic system

hey so over the last couple of months ive been working on my pneumatic aeroponic system.

its 2x4 and it has one delavan 30609-11 siphon nozzle although i own two nozzles. and will be installing other when i start growing my leaf lettuce.

. i kind of killed my basil plants as you can see in the pictures. i just didnt have time for them,i accidentily unpluged the timer for a few hours once and they never grew out of it, plus i didnt use my ph or ec meters at all. i was running 7.22 ph and low 1ooo ec using 700 ec tap water


observations i made during my short grow were.

1. the plants nearest the nozzle never really got proper mist coverage. i will solve this by adding the other nozzle to the other side of the chamber.

2. its loud, im thinking off ways to tame the sound as i live in an apartment, i think the only way to solve this issue is to drape a mass loaded curtain over the top and back and surround the nozzle in polyfil outside the chamber not inside, it would be a wet mess.

3. most of the mist is no longer in suspension after1:45,, this is with a 4 second burst and the roots are glistening in tiny droplets, i think this would mean that i have larger particle than others users who go 3 minutes or longer.


4. rock wool really seems to suck for this after i go from hand watering to just misting my rockwool cube is an algea infested mess and the cube stays so bone dry. i wonder if this drys my plants out.


5. im unsure if basil is capable of fluffy roots like cannabis. but i did see some fishbones. not as incredible as cannabis picture pom pom roots i saw on g loves thread though


6. im really afraid of tap water as mine has so much calcium in it. i really want to start using RO water and filtering my stock solution as i use it to bring my ec up. im thinking of using a buchner funnel with a fiter flask, filter and a hand vacuum pump.

heres a shit load of pictures, hopefully you can make sense of them

another plan i have is to get all 120v solenoids and connect them to a ups power supply.

also if your reading this seed55 i know your running a similar setup. and i would be interested to know which delavan nozzles your using and how long your mist is susspended in the air.

ive read all your threads petflora, i could never go your route, noise isnt really that bad its just annoying wheni have company over and theres a hiss coming from my garden. and the pneumatic route is definitly simpler then trying to use a hydrolic pump connected directly to a whole bunch of nozzles, and deal with the irregular pressure issues that are created by not using a pressure tank

on a side note though petflora. i do own a 20gallon preesure tank that is rated for 150psi. a water pressure gauge. a test hand pump for manually filling my pressure tank with nutrient solution, and most of the hardware. the only thing im lacking are nozzles and tees.

i remember reading that you are using red acetal plastic nozzles. whats the coverage looking like for those nozzles?

does anyone know where i can buy red acetal plastic nozzles with the 20 psi check valves at a reasonable price they are no longer available on ebay and i really want them to build a hp aero cloner

oxanaca said:

on a side note though petflora. i do own a 20gallon preesure tank that is rated for 150psi. a water pressure gauge. a test hand pump for manually filling my pressure tank with nutrient solution, and most of the hardware. the only thing im lacking are nozzles and tees.

i remember reading that you are using red acetal plastic nozzles. whats the coverage looking like for those nozzles?

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Coverage depends on plant placement + size of tote + amount of mist time. My mist heads throw a ~ 160*, ample if you mist long enough to fill the tote/root chamber.

Most HPAers try to shove ten pounds of roots in a 3 pound bag, if you get my drift. Now if you are doing a clone SOG then ok, but you will need longer mist cycles to assure 360* root coverage throughout. Without it, you will get dry areas on the back sides of the roots, which will affect plant/bud growth

My rez is slightly higher than the pump, so line stays primed- no discernible spitting on start up.

The more equipment between the pump and the mist heads the greater the chances of mechanical failure. I only takes a couple hours of no misting to dry out the roots beyond recovery. Having followed other TRUE HPA threads, many site various mechanical failures. My Aquatec 8800 pump is 3+ yo and going strong. I bought a backup, but never use it

I have 3 different grows all started at same time; hpa, My DIY 21st Century F & D + a DIY hybrid bubbler. 3 weeks into flower. No clear winners, other than hydro done right is amazing. Oh, and Hydro-Research VEG+BLOOM blows away Dutch Master Gold

BASIL

I have tried clones in all 3 methods. Basil seems not suited to hpa, but does really well in my bubbler

my basil was doing really good until i accidentily forgot to plug the timer/solenoid back in. i had some 6 inch roots hangin off em.

im actually planingto build my hp cloner soon. i want to make it very reliable, and portable to the point where i can take it off the grid
i own a rothenberg hydrastatic test pump. it is a manual pump and i will need to spend about 3 minutes a day pumping it or 20min a week to keep it full of pressure. but it beats pump failure.

also i will find a way to bring a 12v battery to power my solenoid(s)/timer. im thinking about running 2 solenoids in parallel. and brainstorming an emergency plant saving device that senses dryness in the chamber and takes over for a few hours in the case of timer failure

ive never heard of hydro research. i intend to try canna substra line until i have all the salts i need to make my own stock solutions. im probably goint to try fatmans aeroponic bloom recipe

i just requested a sample from their web site
im going to type there guaranteed analysis numbers into hydrobuddy. i think i could improve upon their formula using iron dtpa instead of edta, more stabile and less likely to become lunch for some bacteria.

what kinds of concentrations do you use for weed and vegetables.

also what kinds of vegetables have you had the most success with?

i just bought a pound of hr salts. felt really lame doing it thought it was $27. the most expensive chemical in their formula costs me $2 per pound. itll be nice to try it though, without all the mixology.

PetFlora said:

Basil seems not suited to hpa, but does really well in my bubbler

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Teffen's @ 80-120 PSI, 45 nozzles per 32 s/f at 3 second on, 4 minutes off for 30 days since germination http://youtu.be/kNjAOlBpdNc

Hard to argue with that. What light, nutes/ppm are you using?

I see you too use my technique to reduce the size of the starter cubes. Mine are sort of cone shaped, but I turn them upside down, develops more lateral roots

holy shit indrharvestmy basil looked like yours when you had the camera focused on the single plant. then they died lol.i now have 32 rockwool cubes with leaf lettuce seedlings in them. so in a day or so ill be ready to rock again.how deep is your chamber?also i notice you have a pretty thick manifold before your nozzles how long after your solenoid shuts do your nozzles continue to spray. or have you found a way to get around that?

PetFlora said:

Hard to argue with that. What light, nutes/ppm are you using? I see you too use my technique to reduce the size of the starter cubes. Mine are sort of cone shaped, but I turn them upside down, develops more lateral roots

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We just went with some T5's, I wanted to collect some base line info. We were using two 8 bulb fixtures @864 watts (actual 742 watts). Yeah I'm looking at differnt ways we could make the rooting process a little simplier. I just used AN's Sensi Grow with the PH perfect. We ran it around 700 early on and bumped it up to around 1200. After a little burn we found the basil was most happiest around 800ppm.

oxanaca said:

holy shit indrharvestmy basil looked like yours when you had the camera focused on the single plant. then they died lol.i now have 32 rockwool cubes with leaf lettuce seedlings in them. so in a day or so ill be ready to rock again.how deep is your chamber?also i notice you have a pretty thick manifold before your nozzles how long after your solenoid shuts do your nozzles continue to spray. or have you found a way to get around that?

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The root chamber is 48" X 96" X 12" and made out of FDA approved HDPE. Nothing sticks to this stuff. Our next molds we are going to do them in black to block UV for the algae. The manifold was a prototype, I'll be dropping the line size down to 3/8. Nozzle run off wasn't bad at all though with the 1/2 pipe. We used under 4 gallons per site, per 45 days in a 102 site unit using the 1/2 pipe. You can run that drain to waste no problem with that ratio and be effecient. So I'm sure the 3/8 line size will drop that number even more. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ny4G5Ktm4L0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_6t1kevAMs

yo pet flora

i got my hydro research veg+bloom and it doesnt fully disolve when i add it to hot water.
do you have this problem. do you have any advice on this

im thinking i will have to put it in a jar with distilled water and pressure cook it. if that doesnt disolve it i dont think any thing will